doorstop
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English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file) Audio (US): (file)
Noun
[edit]doorstop (plural doorstops)
- Any device or object used to halt the motion of a door, as a large or heavy object, a wedge, or some piece of hardware fixed to the floor, door or wall.
- (humorous) A large book, which by implication could be used to stop a door.
- 2010, Jack Hitt, “Is Sarah Palin Porn?”, in Laura Flanders, editor, At The Tea Party: The Wing Nuts, Whack Jobs and Whitey-Whiteness of the New Republican Right... and Why We Should Take It Seriously, page 206:
- Meanwhile, all the Democrats had to put forward that year was a doorstop called Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill.
- 2023 September 13, Gary Shteyngart, “Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson review – arrested development”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
- Walter Isaacson’s insight-free doorstop makes at least one thing clear: the richest man in the world has a lot of growing up to do[.]
- (British, proscribed, nonstandard) (in error for doorstep) A thick sandwich.
- (Australia) An interview with a politician or other public figure (apparently informal or spontaneous but often planned), as they enter or leave a building.
- 2005, Mark Latham, The Latham Diaries[2], page 106:
- And television dominates this place — just look at Beazley tossing around cans of tomato soup at his morning doorstops outside Parliament House.
- 2006, Troy Bramston, The Wran Era[3], page 244:
- The six o′clock news was regarded as the pivotal point in the day. As the news was beginning, often the Premier would make himself available for a doorstop press conference.
- 2010, Anne Tiernan, Patrick Weller, Learning to Be a Minister: Heroic Expectations, Practical Realities, page 218:
- It was estimated, for example, that Treasurer Wayne Swan had given more than 250 interviews and doorstops by the end of his first year in office.
Translations
[edit]wedge used to keep a door open
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large book — see also tome